UN inquiry says Israel committed crimes against humanity in West Bank

A United Nations-mandated commission of inquiry said on Monday that Israel has committed crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank, including extermination. The body is the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

According to the report, Israeli authorities and forces committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence in the West Bank. It also cited persecution based on intersecting discriminatory grounds, with nationality, race and ethnicity at its core.

The commission found that Israeli military operations, reinforced by sustained settler violence, amount to a widespread and systematic attack against civilians. It said the situation in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has deteriorated gravely since Hamas's attack from Gaza in October 2023, and that Israeli authorities intended to collectively punish civilians there because of that attack.

The new report focuses on killings and bodily and mental harm caused by both Israeli and Palestinian security forces since October 2023. It was issued the day before Israel's general election.

Israel's mission in Geneva said the report was part of the inquiry's misinformation campaign to demonise the State of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal. It said the international community must reject these distortions, repudiate the findings and demand the commission's immediate dissolution.

The commission, which does not speak for the UN itself, determined in a September 2025 report that Israel had committed genocide in its war on Gaza. Israel flatly rejects that finding. The three-member team was set up by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021. Navi Pillay, who chaired it until November 2025, won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 1,143 Palestinians, at least 250 of them children, were killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 7, 2023 and October 9, 2026. Gaza's Health Ministry says Israel's offensive has killed more than 74,500 people and displaced nearly the entire population.

The report came as Israeli forces carried out a clampdown, including expulsions and demolitions, in Hebron after a gun attack last week, according to Al Jazeera.